


The Unanswered Prayer

by Gallicenae



Series: Dragon Age - Mages and Templars [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Final Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:27:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5235929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gallicenae/pseuds/Gallicenae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate universe one-shot, where victory in the final battle against Corypheus does not mean everyone was left unscathed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unanswered Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Cullen recites this prayer in the chapel before the final battle. The question of "what if I don't come back" spurred this idea into action. The Spirit of Purpose will show up in "Sacrifices" at a later point in time when Rhian ventures to Tevinter.

_“Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide…”_

Rhian wiped the blood from her brow, squinting with her good eye to try and find Varric in the chaos. He was out cold against a pillar halfway across the battlefield, Bianca a few feet from him. Dorian’s cocky jeers had dried up with his mana reserves, and Cass, with all her skill, not even she could hold off Corypheus for much longer. The one battle that mattered, the one they must not lose, and they were falling in heaps around the magister’s feet. They could not keep up. The potions, the tonics, there were none left. 

She pulled herself up by her staff, leaning heavily against it to catch her breath. Rhian’s insides fought against her, spewing blood and energy from the wounds she couldn’t stem. Gritting her teeth, she shot through the Fade to position herself opposite Cassandra, behind their enemy. The cold ripped through the parts of her that traced the path upon the earth to Corypheus. Rhian could not let the darkness swallow her, could not let the cold seep all the way to her bones and carry her away. 

The blast from her sudden reappearance knocked Corypheus forward, closer to Cassandra’s reach. Rhian’s left hand grew hot with electricity as her spirit blade took shape, crackling into being with all the strength she could pour into it.

_“I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the world beyond…”_

The hand around her throat squeezed, the talons of red lyrium scraping at Rhian’s skin. She gasped for air, every second the will to fight and kick and scream, to do anything but submit, lessened. Varric had managed to gather whatever wits he had left and provide backup for Dorian’s ill attempts to pierce through Corypheus’s barrier. 

“I shall sear you from the very heavens.” It was no longer an idle threat, but a promise.

Her companions’ shouts were fuzzy, humming somewhere in Rhian’s consciousness like the thrum of her head pounding out the rhythm of a willful heart. They were outmatched. It would be so easy, just this once, to stop and finally let the world run her over as it had been trying to do for so many years before. 

There was a jolt, and Corypheus lost his grasp upon her as Cassandra drove into him with her shield, righteous in all her fury. Rhian was thrown to the steps, her leg buckling beneath her weight, breaking open with a howl and a pain unlike any she had previously felt. Her vision blurred and her head swam with the intensity of it. She had no skill to heal this sort of injury in the thick of battle.

Rhian watched helplessly as Corypheus batted Cassandra away as he would a fly. Then he pulled Dorian in close only to launch him at the warrior like a weapon. They hurtled together into a wall, a collision that left dust spinning in the air. Then Corypheus came for Rhian. 

“Let it end here.” He stalked closer to her raising his voice with every step. “Let the skies boil. Let the world be rent asunder.”

The power of the orb emanated all around, the bright red sphere pulsating against its nature. Rhian’s hand felt as if it were being stabbed a hundred times over, the mark piercing through from her fingertips to her wrist. She could feel her body on the edge of breaking, on being completely torn apart.

_“For there is no darkness in the Maker’s light…”_

Her choice was beyond thought, beyond logic and all she had stood firmly against her whole life. It was instinct that finally drove Rhian to reach out to Purpose, to fully accept the spirit dwelling within, to offer up everything she ever was to become what the world knew as an abomination. She leapt beyond that fear to achieve what had become impossible, to win a losing battle, to save the fucking world again. Immediately her heart slowed, energy seeped into her body, soaking up the world in a single breath. She saw the battlefield as an observer would, extending her senses to awaken those of her comrades. Their expressions confused her, lost somewhere between shock and horror. Corypheus was before her with the orb, sensing a change, but unable to understand exactly what that change meant. He still believed he would walk the hallowed halls of a different realm, become a god. She seethed. 

She poured whatever mana reserves remained into her mark, her life force, her will, and all that Purpose had come to be while they had been bonded. The mark expanded, snaking it’s way up her arm, marking the rest of her body. Rhian brimmed with the green and white energy of spirit and Fade coalescing. She saw the dread as she looked up into the magister’s eyes with a gaze not her own.

_“And nothing that he has wrought shall be…”_

It was done. Rhian knelt where she had first fallen, the orb cooling in her hand. Corypheus was gone, disintegrated in a powerful shockwave of energy. The Breach remained open above them. The world was quiet save for the hum of the elven sphere at her side. 

Dorian stumbled up, bracing himself against his staff as he rushed toward his friend. His face fell when he caught sight of her. The orb’s energy flickered, mirroring the green pulses that continued to etch themselves across her body. There was no magic for this.

Rhian heard her companions’ movement. She heard Dorian whisper her name. She heard Cass telling him to do something, heard Varric curse under his breath. But the only thing she listened to was Cullen’s words to her in the chapel, _“Whatever happens, you will come back.”_

She looked at them then, with a smile Dorian knew all too well. And her light grew steadily brilliant as Rhian looked up at the sky, the mark consuming her as it returned to the orb for the final piece of deliverance.

_“Lost.”_

They returned the way they had come, hollow in the face of victory. They did not question Solas as he passed them on the crumbling stairs; his own silence was enough. The cheers upon their return wrenched at Dorian, and Varric kept his eyes on the ground. The crowd was too close and too overjoyed for anyone to notice. It only grew quiet when they reached the courtyard, when all but Dorian turned from the Commander’s searching gaze. And the world stilled as a man dropped to his knees.


End file.
